Tag: H!P

Well, it’s been TEN YEARS! Ten years! I started this blog January 4th, 2008! And this little milestone coincides with H!P’s TWENTY YEAR anniversary! How insane is that!? That was not planned, but I think it’s really awesome.

And, as per usual, I COMPLETELY MISSED IT!
So let’s just make this my tenth anniversary…uh…YEAR.
(Warning: this is gonna be long and about Isilie more than idols – you’ve been warned.)

I think it very Isilie of me to have completely forgotten about the milestone of ten years of H!P blogging. I’ve missed my “anniversary” basically every single year for the past nine years. That’s pretty ridiculous. It suits my personality very much. An anecdotal example: on my birthday a few years ago, I met a friend for coffee. She was sitting at a table with a small bouquet of flowers. The first thing I said was, “Oh! Who gave you flowers?” She just burst out laughing and handed them to me.

Maa-Duu began during the auditions for Morning Musume. Masaki-kins went around the room and asked the other applicants their names and where they were from. She encountered Kudo Haruka for the first time and asked her, “What’s your name?”

From that, Masaki-kins concluded that Kudo was probably a bit of a weirdo (reference).

Later on, she was happy to discover that this weirdo had also made it into the group. During their subsequent encounters, Kudo was bossy and blunt, but she was someone that Masaki really liked.

And thus a friendship, odd and cantankerous, was born.

After years of antics, possessiveness, and tsundere-pimpin’, Kudo graduated and Masaki-kins wrote a troubling blog post about it. And the speculation began. In my case, the first time I read a translation of Masaki’s blog post, I remember thinking, “Oh man, I hope she doesn’t quit.”

I think saying, “What a year!” is quite the understatement. There have been so many changes, it’s hard to know where to start. Even someone like me, who pretty much only follows Morning Musume, couldn’t help but take notice. I don’t think any group, except Tsubaki Factory is exempt from the relentless changes this year. Although they did unexpectedly get good.

Country Girls got split up and placed into other groups; Momoko finally graduated, but then Shige decided to return; Kobushi Factory got chopped from 8 to 5 without ceremony; Kuudo Harukins left us for acting; Some of the Eggs (they will always be Eggs to me) debuted with a fabulous, fabulous song.

There’s probably more, but let’s try and talk about one thing at a time, shall we? This is gonna be LONG.

Permit me a small freak-out post, even though you and I both know that everything is going to be fine.

I suppose ‘evolution’ is the word I want. But this is starting to be more than I can handle. I’m not trying to pick on AKB (although I suspect it will come across that way), but that is not a format I want for H!P. It’s not what H!P is. If H!P becomes a giant, unstable idol factory in which every group can just be shuffled at will and auditions don’t mean anything and groups that have worked hard get unceremoniously split up or the group name just suddenly disappears-

I still think the Platinum Era members of Momusu had it tough and it’s only now that people are realizing how amazing that group became. During promotions for their 20th anniversary, Shige said that if people were going to praise the members of that time, she wishes they would have done it back then. As Takahashi pointed out, “No one called it ‘Platinum’ at that time!” One of the most frustrating things they heard back then was, “What is Morning Musume up to nowadays?”

There were many factors contributing to their lack of popularity in Japan, but one of the major ones I cited was the appearance of AKB48. They were younger, newer, they were more accessible (at the time) and they had the variety emphasis Momusu no longer had. Momusu had to figure out what it wanted to be in the bridge period between the Golden Era and whatever they were to become. I think people generally agree that their Golden Era ended when Yossy graduated, but the usual transition was interrupted by Fujimoto Miki unexpectedly resigning to be with the man she eventually married (“Shoujiiiiii!”). Until Tsunku could find our ninth generation, Momusu had to recreate itself without their senpai to help.

One of the main things I kept seeing in blogs was ranting about ‘stagnation’ and it still bothers me. For a period of such immense changes, people didn’t seem to see anything but the lack of auditions and reliance on the same types of songs for each new release. I’m going to try and explain why I feel they didn’t stagnate; in fact, I think their development raised the bar for future generations and paved the way for the Colourful Era.

I had no idea. NONE. Like everyone else (at least everyone I’ve read), I assumed that Iikubo or maybe Fuku-hime would be next in line to graduate. See, we were all thinking about ages, huh? We didn’t think about one of the girls actually wanting to leave, because she honestly loves acting more than idol-ing.

It happens, people. Even to those who pwn our idol socks right off.

I was all ready to start posting about Kudo’s graduation, but then the bizarre revival of the shuffles happened and now I don’t even know where to start…So I split things up and I’ll just focus on one at a time.

Let’s pretend for a moment BOSS graduating is still all there is to it…

I don’t think I can express to you what Momusu means to me. I haven’t been a fan since the beginning, of course. I don’t live in Japan, can barely speak/understand the language (workin’ on it!) and can only understand idol culture on a surface level. What I can do is come out of my long hiatus, full of writer’s block and lack of motivation, to tell you about what being a fan of Momusu for the last ten years has meant to me.

(Unless otherwise stated, all caps/gifs are from random google-searches/tumblrs – not mine!)

We’re back everybody (and once again, I’m absurdly behind in my reviews)! After a brief and glorious respite from the heavy formation choreography and the blatant pushing of an Ace member – it’s all made a comeback in Brand New Morning, Momusu’s declaration of war on 2017.

Ok, well it’s actually not a war declaration. It’s an uplifting song about moving forward in confusing times and using all your power for good and so forth; it’s the usual morning fare with perhaps a whiff of politics (although to say this song is about Trump seems stupid to me). But this is a BRAND NEW morning (get it?) and we have two fabulous new members to shake things up.

After about two years of Platinum generation, with their slowly declining sales and lack of television presence, it seemed like every post about Momusu involved the word ‘stagnation’. The O.Gs were almost always onscreen when Momusu got to appear and as a result, the concept of the Golden Age became a topic of endless, heated debate. This is also the first time I ever encountered the concept of ‘rage-quitting’ a fandom: “They are just so bad that I am QUITTING them dammit!!.

Never mind all the changes that had happened two years ago and how lightning quick O.Gs had graduated or just exited (it was hard to catch your breath after Abe Natsumi graduated); Never mind the unprecedented move of having Chinese members in Momusu, or the fact that long-time shows had ended and new shows had taken their places; Never mind how H!P was slowly condensing, splitting into Elder Club and WonderfulheartsLand only to have a massive Elder Club exodus in only a couple years; Never mind how very different concerts became when there wasn’t that strong emphasis on variety anymore and how each girl had to step up her game.

Nope. All that mattered was Momusu was the same as it was a year ago, and let’s not forget the looming juggernaut of the emerging AKB48!

What was Itsumo Genki, Momusu-Supporter, to do? Was it really that bad? Let’s take a look at some of the things that I can remember people hating about the Platinum era.

There is no other period of Morning Musume history that gets more criticism, insults, and terrible reviews than the Platinum Generation. At least there isn’t to my knowledge and I’ve been in this fandom for a decade now (wow, who else feels old?). It’s strange to me, who became a fan in late 2006, that this era is now becoming a bit as mythical as the Golden Age. Obviously it’s nowhere near as admired and lusted after, but people now seem to acknowledge how spoiled we were back in the age of JunLin, Takahashi Ai and, depending on your level of crack-consumption, Miracle-Ace Koharu. Since the kyuukies, the polish of the group with only three newbies has gone down. The vocals aren’t as strong, for example and mileages vary on performance level.

In one of her many awesome posts, Magi-kat made the point that there is a whole generation of new Momusu fans who are used to the conditions of one or two members getting all the solo lines, the relentlessly pushed ‘Ace’ member carrying all the pressure, and members staying in the group for decades. That was simply never the norm until Platinum Era.

So what was the Platinum Generation/Era? Why did people hate it so much if it created a generation of fans? Why is the question of the Ace so important for people now?